Gray: Digital billboards might be coming soon

Published 5:30 am, Thursday, April 7, 2011

"TV on a stick": That's how detractors usually describe digital billboards, but really, the phrase is too kind. You can turn off a TV.

You don't have that kind of control over a digital billboard — which is part of the reason that outdoor advertising companies love them. It's nearly impossible not to glance at a glowing, hi-res signs whose ads change every eight seconds. Like it or not, you end up with billboard pitches - microsurgical vasectomy reversal! DoNotBlow.com! The Bridal Extravaganza! - burned into your retinas.

For a while, Houston seemed safe from that form of blight. Like all of Texas' big cities, we have regulations that ban digital billboards - both because they're painfully ugly and because they're designed to take drivers' eyes off the road.

But now our freedom from those distracting eyesores is in danger. A pair of bills in the Texas Legislature would allow digital billboards to weasel their way into those cities.

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And the sneak attack is disguised, of all things, as a safety measure.

The bills look harmless at first: Both House Bill 1765 and Senate Bill 971 describe an "emergency public safety messaging network" that would notify drivers of evacuation plans, Amber alerts and such - never mind that the Texas Department of Transportation already has a network of less-distracting emergency signs to do just that. Or that notice-worthy emergencies exist only about 1 percent of the time.

What would those digital billboards display during the other 99 percent?

"Commercial digital messages," the legislation explains, deep on page 4. And the private contractor would pocket 95 percent of the resulting ad revenue, leaving the state and city to split the crumbs.

Under the bill, the approval of just one executive - an area's "emergency management director," usually either a city mayor or county judge - would be all that's needed to make an end run around local sign codes and building ordinances, state billboard law and even the Lady Bird Johnson Highway Beautification Act.

The very thought of violating the Lady Bird act appalls any right-thinking, bluebonnet-loving Texan. And it carries serious financial consequences, too: According to the Texas Department of Transportation, passage of this bill could cost the state up to 10 percent of the billions the state receives in federal highway funds. That's real money - far more than the city and state seem likely to collect from ad-sales crumbs.

"This legislation is nothing but a mechanism to circumvent Texas cities' no-new-billboard laws to allow commercial billboards where they are not wanted," says Anne Culver, executive director of Scenic Houston.

Who supports these bills? Mainly, people who'd turn fat profits on those billboards: In a recent Senate hearing, a representative of the Texas Emergency Network admitted that his group came together to lobby for the bills, in hopes that it would then win the resulting contract.

Who hates the bills? Besides Scenic Houston, there's the city of Houston, Harris County, the Harris County Toll Road Authority, Scenic Texas, and the Municipal League. Many other Texas cities have voiced objections to having their local controls overridden.

You'd think it'd be obvious that these bills are going nowhere. But they're not at all dead, and opponents worry that the legislation could slip through during this crazed legislative session. Lawmakers, they worry, might be distracted by the bills' "emergency public safety" gloss.

And we almost - almost - couldn't blame the legislators. The poor things are up against an industry that specializes in shiny distractions. We need to make sure they keep their eyes on the road.